“My works are earthly, starting with Junkyard Symphony, an approach related to the exterior, ground and waste. The space is increasingly populated by ordinary or current objects, but also by characters, I am trying to maintain a playful manner through representation and recomposition. It passes into another register, the interior, the desires, the lust. but keeping the same horizontal plane. So this is how the personal mythologies were born, with sincerity, boredom, suffering, desires, or guilty pleasures. Beginning with Toxic Desire, I’m more interested in distinguishing my subjectivity and individual development. All the works were shaped around personal experiences. From the representations of the bad choices we make through our superficiality and a hedonistic living, to the assumption of this flat existence. We are captive in a sort of limbo of desires. And on this realm I build my works, as a sequential reinterpretation of Hieronymus Bosch’s Garden of Earthly Delights.” –Edith Torony, “Love that Moves the Sun and Other Stars”, Saatchi Art, 2019
“The love that moves the sun and other stars” (2019 Blogpost)
“‘L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.’
“That’s how Dante Alighieri terminates his Master Piece the Divine Comedy.
“This quote has popped in my mind a lot recently, I’ve tried to substitute the word ‘love’ with many other (abstinence, caffeine, fear), but nothing works as well as it does.
“Dante had already understood in the XIV century, love is the strongest of all forces.
“Will we be able to stop loving? Or to prevent loving from hurting us? Probably not. A few times in my life I’ve experienced having a broken heart. I thought that was just a metaphor, until I felt it happening in my chest, in my head, or actually in my heart. [. . .]
“So, I need to remember to be the center of my own solar system, I need to keep in mind that I’m the sun. And maybe, when love will move the sun, the other stars will move along.” –Flavia, “The love that moves the sun and other stars,” ClassicFlavia, February 12, 2019
Nuruddin Farah, Links (2004)
“Nuruddin Farah’s ninth novel in English, Links, makes a mainly para-textual use of Dante’s Commedia, implicitly validating its canonical status both within Italian literary tradition and world literature as a whole. The epigraphs chosen for each part of the book come from Dante’s Inferno, except the first three exergues…
“Through the references to Dante’s Commedia, Jeebleh’s journey is configured from the beginning as a descent to hell, represented by the city of Mogadishu during the civil war.” [. . .] –Simone Brioni, Lorenzo Mari, Postcolonial Dante: Reading the Commedia in Mogadishu, 2019
Access Links by Nuruddin Farah here.
Contributed by Simone Brioni (Ph.D., Stony Brook University)
Dante’s Inferno Song, Whirlybird (2019)
On October 9, 2019, American band Whirlybird released their EP Hot Flashes which included a song called “Dante’s Inferno”. The lyrics make reference to Dante’s journey through Hell, stating: “Dante’s coming through the inferno”.
Listen to the song here.
View the full lyrics of “Dante’s Inferno” here.
Garane Garane, Il Latte è Buono (2005)
“Ho studiato nelle scuole della lingua di Dante…Grazie Dea Italia! Sarò finalmente lontano da questi somari, da questi brutti ceffi, selvaggi, che adorano i cammelli…” –Garane Garane, Il Latte è Buono, 2005
“Gashan’s (the protagonist’s) identification with Dante is central in the novel, which can be seen as an inverted journey from the Heaven of the uncritical enjoyment of Italian culture in Somalia to the Hell of European and American discrimination and Somali Civil War. Garane’s Il Latte è Buono can be defined as a Bildungsroman since the character becomes increasingly aware of the psychological influence of Italian colonialism on his education when he reaches and lives in Italy. To some extent, Dante’s role within his Bildung is once again to serve as a meta-literary guide for the main character, recalling Virgil’s role as Dante’s mentor in the Commedia.” –Simone Brioni, Lorenzo Mari, Postcolonial Dante: Reading the Commedia in Mogadishu, 2019
Access Il Latte è Buono by Garane Garane here.
Contributed by Simone Brioni (Ph.D., Stony Brook University)
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